The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-01-20
GOLD TREVOR HOUSE,
The Mystery Of It's Last Mysteri.
GUS Occupant

The Mystery Of It's Last Mysteri-
GUS Occupant
The sOld Trevor House," as from time i'm.
memorial it had been known to the people
of East Winston, was, at the period in
which the final scene of this sketch is laid,
the sole architectural relic of colonial times
yet remaining of the many landmarks Of q
bygone age swept away in the previous
quarter of a century, before the relentless
''march Of improvement" Like many an
other ancient structure of its class, II had
gained mysterious reputation, partly from
the mixture Of truth and fiction we call ira
dition, partly from the strange power over
the human fancy possessed by q human
abode in the decay of antiquity The old
house, whose mossy roof has sheltered
many successive generations, whose walls
have shielded the newborn babe and the
dying grandsire, through whose portals
have passed so much of joy and sorrow,
hope and disappointment, whose very exist
ence has been for scores of years inter
twined with human thought and human
feeling, becomes endowed with an almost
human individuality, and appeals with pre-
vailing force to the sympathies and the i'm
agination.
The Trevor house was built in the style
especially favored by the colonial magnates
OF one hundred and fifty years ago. 1t was
an overgrown building all under one vast
double roof with an immense stone chimney
protruding from the center of its peak, and
a row Of three dormer windows projecting
from its side, in front. The rooms were
spacious but low; and the great beams
showing themselves overhead, and in every
angle, told of the days when trees were yet
large, and timber plentiful
No small part of the interior of the house
was occupied by the great chimney stack,
and the cavern-like fireplaces confirmed the
story of the beams. What sight it must
have been when one of these now black and
repulsive hearths was piled high with
sizzling beech logs, sending up to the stars
their clouds Of vaporous smoke and crack
ling sparks; while lights and shadows
danced upon the walls in unison with the
Pickering fiames-a fire worthy of the hall
ofa Norman Baron. But now the fires
that burned in the ancient fire.
places were those occasionally kindled
by some wretched vagrant who tried to
consider himself protected by rotting cham
ber floors, and by rafters from which the
shingles were dropping, like decaying leaves
1lOul d Wluu Sudheu Tree Top.
For many years the old house had been
used as tenement house and had been oc-
cupicd by that form Of poverty just above
the degree Of pauperism. But it was re-
marked that want and nominal rent were
not able to induce even it's most pitiable ten
ant to remain long beneath its roof Strange
tales were told of the mysterious sounds
heard in its empty rooms but whether the
gnawing of rats, and the wind whistling
through knotholes, connected with the we'll
known legends concerning the place-the
effect of all being heightened by the active
imaginations OF the superstitious dwellers
in this myth inspiring ruin-had any thing
to do in creating these stories, the intelli-
gent part OF the community did not seem TO
regard it worth investigating. Still, the Old
Trevor House had come to be looked upon
by every one as being, in some strange
sense, different from all the other houses; !;
though, perhaps, very few would have been
willing to confess, openly, that they them
selves shared in the general belief
But now, for some time, the old mansion
having fallen into state of irreparable
ruin, had been superseded by the aims
house as the last resort of honest poverty,
and its hospitality was extended only to the
transient guest, to whom it was matter of
a roof or the sky.
Two hundred years ago, the Trevor family
held the chief place among the aristocracy
of East Winston, or Winston, as it was then
called. The founder of the family had come
from England as one of the pioneers of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, and, stern Pur.
itan as he was, and forsaking his native
land to brave the hardships Of u wilder
ness for conscience's sake, as he did, he
never forgot that his was branch of one
of the most ancient families of England,
nor the Difference that in his belief this
fact made only his just due from those
lower in the social scale than himself.
This characteristic lost none of its force in
its transmission to his immediate posterity
and the second and third generations of
Trevors possessed all the overbearing ar
rogance Of their ancestor, not always
tempered by his real desire to act Justly
and wisely towards all men, :
We .are disposed to look back to those
early times as upon an age of primitive and
democratic simplicity, when men were not
only equal, but this equality was fully recog
nized by each man in his neighbor; but
there is reason to believe that social dis
tinctions existed, with degree Of assump-
ton on one side, and of concession on the
OthCA, niihoob uuhuoWn III tnlS country al
the present day. And, perhaps, of all the
family OF the Trevors who lived before OF
since tho days of the Puritan emigrant, the
most arrogant was John Trevor, the builde,
OF the house we have described, who begar
the work soon after the beginning of the
Last century.
Haughty and severe in the extreme in hii
bearing toward others, an unreasonable
tyrant wherever he could exercise hi
power, he was feared and hated by thos,
with whom he came In contact Hardly ,
day passed, that, in some way, he did no
trample upon the rights or feelings of som,
one; and he seemed to derive . savag,
pleasure in exciting rage or grief in tn,
hearts Of others. HIS station and weaitl
enabled him to ride rough -shod over hi
poorer and weaker neighbors, and NOR
than one vow Of vengeance WAS mad
against this unscrupulous despot by thos
who could not cope with him openly.
In the early part Of tho contest betwee
EnslAnd and France known - Quael
Apns's Wsr, In which the colonias becam
Involved, John Trevor held . Captain
eonmissiNn N ths colonial tsoops; sal